Recounts scheduled for House races in Newmarket, Rochester

NEWMARKET — A House race in Newmarket decided by less than a dozen votes will undergo a ballot recount this month.

The contest for Rockingham County House District 17, which encompasses Newmarket, is one of several election races in which a recount is requested following Tuesday’s vote.

Democrats swept the district, taking all three seats, but Republican Adam Schroadter, an incumbent serving his first term in the House, came in a close fourth place, according to preliminary tallies.

The top vote-getter in the race was Democratic Rep. Marcia Moody, who received 3,124 votes. Behind her were Democrats Michael Cahill, at 2,982 votes, and William Hudson Connery III, at 2,454.

Schroadter trailed Connery by eight votes, receiving 2,446.

Schroadter’s fellow Newmarket Republican and House member, Joshua Davenport, was also defeated Tuesday. He finished in fifth place, while write-in candidate Carolyn Scanlon came in sixth place.

Following Tuesday’s election, candidates in 23 races requested recounts, which are scheduled to take place between Tuesday, Nov. 13 and Tuesday, Nov. 20.

Twenty of those recounts involve state House races. Recounts have also been requested in two state Senate races, in District 9 and District 16, and for the position of Cheshire County sheriff.

Ballots will be recounted in the Rockingham County House District 17 race contest on Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 1 p.m.

Another race also subject to a recount is the Strafford County House District 7 race in Rochester, according to a schedule released Friday by the Secretary of State’s office.

The Strafford District 7 race was decided by a much wider margin than the contest in Newmarket, according to preliminary results.

In that race, Democrat Audrey Stevens defeated Republican Deborah Kaczynski by a tally of 1,328 votes to 990 votes. A recount for the District 7 race has been scheduled for Nov. 19 at 9 a.m. to decide the final outcome.

A third House contest being tallied once more is the race for Rockingham County District 24, which comprises New Castle and Rye. Democrats David A. Borden and Tom Sherman prevailed in the race Tuesday. They defeated Republicans Will Smith, an incumbent House member, and Raymond Tweedie.

A recount will also take place in the Rockingham District 37 race, where Democrat E. Elaine Ahearn, of Hampton Falls, was declared the victor.

After watching Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives once again in Tuesday’s election, Republican Speaker William O’Brien will also have to endure a recount process in his own local election race. O’Brien, who represents Mount Vernon and New Boston in Hillsborough County District 5, finished in second place in the two-seat district. He defeated the third-place finisher in the race by 67 votes.

A blue wave in Tuesday’s election delivered dozens of new House seats to local Democrats. The party also gained a majority on the Executive Council and sent another Democrat to the governor’s office.

Rep. Terie Norelli, of Portsmouth, the Democratic minority leader in the House, announced shortly before noon Wednesday that preliminary figures show Democrats regaining the majority by a margin of at least 217 seats to 177 seats.

O’Brien announced Wednesday he will not seek a leadership position in the new Republican minority in the House. Deputy House Speaker Pam Tucker, a Greenland Republican who ran unopposed in the election, announced Friday she has assembled a coalition of at least 69 Republican lawmakers who have endorsed her for the position of House minority leader.